Is Google Making Us Stupid?

I did not find this essay as interesting as the others. I understood what the author was saying, and there were certain parts that I agreed with, but for most of the essay, he makes the same point over and over again. Carr states that because of the internet and its easy access to short articles and other pieces of writing, people are no longer able to focus on anything longer than a couple of pages. He says that the internet has changed the way we think. We get distracted more easily, so we can’t concentrate on long pieces of writing. He backs this up with a few research studies and quotes from writers and professors.

Carr also connects the way the minds of computer-users connect to Taylorism. He talks about how peoples’ minds are becoming more and more like machines-- we try to find the quickest and most efficient way to get information, but we aren’t really able to think about it. Carr includes an unsettling quote by one of Google’s founders, “Certainly if you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain, you’d be better off.” It is slightly troublesome how they want peoples’ brains to be more like machines.

I thought this essay brought up an interesting point; however, I didn’t like how Carr repeated his point so much. Some of what he says is true-- it can be hard to focus on long works, and perhaps that comes from the convenience of search engines. But I find that it is easy to concentrate on long pieces of writing if I find them interesting. The hard things to concentrate on are writings that I find boring. The lack of concentration there does not come from the length of the work, but from my lack of interest.